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Wednesday, October 5, 2016

A Bit About Me, A Bit About My Book RACE THE DARKNESS

*GIVEAWAY announced at the end*

A Bit About Me...

I’ve been a mental health therapist
for sixteen years. So many people have said to me “I could never do that job.
It’s got to be so depressing.” As weird as it sounds, the job isn’t depressing.
It’s rewarding and fascinating and a constant source of inspiration.

The
rewarding side: My job isn’t to fix a client. It’s to show them how to fix
themselves. It’s to get them to think outside their box.To show them the resources and places to find
answers. To teach them how to reconnect with their gut feeling and always
always always follow that feeling. It’s there for a reason. I love seeing my
clients get better. Watching them grow and change and move beyond whatever
issue brought them into my office just plain feels good.

The
fascinating side: In its most essential form, my job is to listen to people.
Really listen. I listen to stories all day long. It’s one of the aspects of my
job I love the most. I never know what story a client is going to tell. And
I’ve got to tell you, life truly is stranger than fiction.

The
inspiration side: My clients inspire my writing. Not that any of my characters
are based on any client, but those stories I hear all day are a springboard for
my imagination. A tiny seed from a story leads to giant tree of an idea.

Loving my clients stories led me to
create the blog Author
on the Couch. It’s a different kind of author interview. It’s where I get
authors to talk about their psyche. The experiences that make them who they are
and their personality. I really try to get at the story behind the storyteller.
Because people just fascinate me.A Bit About RACE THE DARKNESS...

IF HE LOSES, SHE DIESHer voice haunts his thoughts; her whispers fill his daysBut when he discovers the woman of his dreams is realHe'll race the clock to save her before she's lost to him forever

Scarred by lightning, burdened with a power that gives him no peace, criminal investigator Xander Stone struggles to maintain his sanity against the voice that haunts him day and night—the voice of a woman begging him to save her.

Isleen Walker has long since given up hope of escape from the nightmare of captivity and torture that is draining her life, her mind, and her soul. Except...there is the man in her feverish dreams, a strangely beautiful man who beckons her to freedom. And when he comes, if he comes, it will take all their combined fury and faith to overcome a madman bent on fulfilling a deadly prophecy.

Named a Publishers Weekly Top 10 Fall Romance for 2016!

Excerpt:

They weren’t going to make it.

Not unless he suddenly sprouted blue tights and a red cape. The hope
of escape morphed into despair and resignation and finally reckless
pissed-off-ness. No fucking way was he going to die running. He stopped,
turned, and faced the truck barreling toward them. The tires ate up the ground
at an indecent rate. He clutched Isleen tighter to his chest. For her sake, he
wanted it to be a quick death. No more lingering. No more pain.

That thought infuriated him. None of this was right. They shouldn’t
be on the verge of death. Again.

The truck kept coming—now twenty-five feet away.

Everything slowed, happening as if through the quicksand of time. A
white dandelion floaty meandered on the breeze directly between them and the
truck. His heart no longer ran a staccato rhythm. Duh…dum.
Pause. Duh…dum. Pause.

His life didn’t flash before his eyes. The future did. Isleen’s
future. In an ethereal dream beyond time, her skin was gilded by firelight, her
eyes devoid of sadness and fear, her body whole and healthy. She smiled, an
expression so full of warmth and tenderness and undiluted joy that it plunked
itself down inside his heart and wouldn’t leave.

He ached to create that kind of smile on her face, but their lives
were over. It all could’ve gone so differently if he’d only listened to her,
believed in her, found her years before now.

The air changed, displaced by the truck only a few feet from them.
Heat from the engine blasted his face, smelling of burning oil, gasoline, and a
scent reminiscent of popped corn. He locked eyes with the bitch behind the
wheel. Her pudgy lips ripped back over her teeth in a snarling scream.

Xander knew anger—his best friends were fury and rage—but the look
on the bitch’s face went beyond mere anger all the way to unholy.

The truck imploded.

The sound was supersonic, a resonation that rippled through his skin
and muscle to rattle his bones and shake the earth underneath his feet. Metal
and glass and fire shot outward, skyward, backward, in a near-perfect arc of
destruction. Flaming debris rained around them.

He stood there holding Isleen, watching it happen, not believing the
message his eyes sent to his brain.

“What the…?” The last of the truck parts hit the ground. The pieces
burned. That’s all that was left—pieces. Nothing touched them,
like they resided under an invisible dome of protection.

He
glanced down at Isleen for an answer, but she was unconscious, her head lolling
so limply on her neck that it looked as if he was carrying a corpse.

Hi Abbie!I love love love your concept behind the blog you created! Have you ever had to deal with negative responses from readers? There are so many judgemental people out there, it makes me wonder if any guests have been very personal, and had backlash from it. Or are there certain subjects you try to steer clear of? I applaud you for your creativity and your ability to be so empathic!

Great question! My blog does get extremely personal at times. But there's never been any backlash from readers. Never. Not even a hint. If anything the community of readers rally around those Authors who bare there soul on my couch!